JSE-listed low- cost bank, Capitec Bank, is steaming ahead, stealing market share from South Africa’s bigger banks which include Standard Bank, Absa, FirstRand and Nedbank, it merged this week.

Carl Fischer, the head of corporate affairs and marketing at Capitec, believes growth in the number of new customers that are depositing their money with Capitec is a clear sign of trust that public has in the bank.

Customers, according Fischer, believe the bank satisfies their core banking requirements.

Earlier this year, Capitec opened 53 new outlets and it would have opened a further 75 branches by the end of the current financial year. This will bring its total footmark in South Africa to 567 branches.

However, the lender has no intentions of expanding into Africa as its business model can be sustained only in economies where the majority of people are employed.

Riaan Stassen, the CEO of Capitec Bank, once told Ventures Africa that the bank was looking at expansion opportunities in Europe and other parts of the developed world.

According to the information released this week by a survey conducted by Dashboard and World Wide Worx, the number of respondents that preferred to bank with Capitec in 2013 surged to 19 percent from 11 percent in 2012 and 4 percent in 2010.

Capitec was the only bank which increased the number of new customers while other banks suffered client losses.

About 24 percent of respondents said they banked with Absa, a significant drop from 32 percent in 2012 and 31 percent in 2010.

The number of respondents that preferred to bank with FNB, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of FirstRand, sagged from 24 percent in 2012 to 20 percent in 2013.

Those that preferred Standard Bank sagged from 22 percent in 2012 to 21 percent in 2013.

In September this year, Capitec Bank posted an 18 percent surge in clients to 5.016 million.

Earlier this year, Capitec Bank overtook Nedbank as South Africa’s fourth-biggest bank by market share.